This daily blog is composed of clips and links from other progressive blog and news sites, accompanied by my own observations. It documents the failure and decline of the Republican party and the efforts of the Obama administration to build a new, lasting Democratic coalition.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

OVERREACTIONS

As expected, the Ricci decision is overturned by the Supreme Court, and as expected, Republicans pounce, arguing that this shows that Sonia Sotomayor is an unqualified racist

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/06/29/ricci/index.html[Alex Koppelman] Any big Supreme Court case on racial discrimination is bound to attract some attention, especially when the plaintiffs are a group of white firefighters who didn't get a promotion that test scores showed them deserving of. Add in that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who has since been nominated to the Supreme Court, played a role and you have a hotly anticipated opinion, one that could serve as the focal point for the battle over her nomination. . . . [read on]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/29/ricci/index.html[Glenn Greenwald] In light of today's ruling, it's a bit difficult -- actually, impossible -- for a rational person to argue that Sotomayor's Ricci decision places her outside the judicial mainstream when: (a) she was affirming the decision of the federal district court judge; (b) she was joined in her decision by the two other Second Circuit judges who, along with her, comprised a unanimous panel; (c) a majority of Second Circuit judges refused to reverse that panel's ruling; and now: (d) four out of the nine Supreme Court Justices -- including the ones she is to replace -- agree with her.

Put another way, 11 out of the 21 federal judges to rule on Ricci ruled as Sotomayor did. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that she ruled erroneously, but it's definitively unreasonable to claim that her Ricci ruling places her on some sort of judicial fringe. . . . [read on]

Defenders of the status quo on health care like to point out that a public option will destroy the system of robust free-market competition that currently exists.Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), speaking earlier this month on Fox News, called President Obama's plan the "first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known." A public option, Shelby added, would "destroy the marketplace for health care."

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. . . . [read on]

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Why it’s hard to get equal rights legislation through Congress, even when the people are ready for it

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/culture-politics-and-majoritarianism.php[Matt Yglesias] The underlying dynamic here illustrates why it’s always been a mistake to try to draw a contrast between gay rights groups’ efforts to secure equality through the courts and to secure equality through the political process. The fact of the matter is that the political process simply isn’t very friendly to minority rights claims even when the claims themselves are reasonably popular. Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has become a majoritarian position, but the Obama administration would still prefer to avoid the headaches involved in working to repeal it. At the same time, if a court case were to order the administration to end this policy, it’s abundantly clear that there would be no critical mass of political support for trying to put it back in place.

Either way, the basic fact of the matter is that the political system is biased toward doing nothing. The mere fact that a majority is prepared to support claims of equality doesn’t mean that political leaders want to expend time and energy making our clunky legislative mechanics produce laws reflecting that fact. Under the circumstances, people with just claims to make on their own behalf are wise to pursue those claims through all available avenues including the judiciary.

“The president said not long ago in an interview, quote-unquote, we are out of money,” Pawlenty told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King when asked whether the country could afford health care reform right now. “With all due respect Mr. President, if we’re out of money, quit spending it,” Pawlenty added.

Gov. Pawlenty says he will approve Al Franken as senator as soon as the Minnesota Supreme Court makes the call

You know that it drives the establishment press bonkers when Obama calls on bloggers – BLOGGERS! – at his press conferences. Well, they’re going after Nico Pitney from Huffington Post, and it’s become quite the little inside-the-Beltway kerfuffle. You tell me who comes off looking worse

The ability of Matt Drudge, that self-promoting hack, to almost singlehandedly drive issues (or pseudo-issues) onto the national press agenda was inexplicable during the Bush years. Well, those days seem to be over

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Under the proposal, detainees considered too dangerous to prosecute or release would be kept in confinement in the U.S. or possibly overseas, two administration officials said Friday. Otherwise, the White House could get bogged down for months seeking agreement with Congress on a new legal detention system. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27cohen.html[Roger Cohen] From Day 1, Iran’s women stood in the vanguard. Their voices from rooftops were loudest, and their defiance in the streets boldest. “Stand, don’t run,” Nazanine told me as the baton-wielding police charged up handsome Vali Asr avenue on the day after the fraudulent election. She stood.

Images assail me: a slender woman clutching her stomach outside Tehran University after the blow; a tall woman gesticulating to the men behind her to advance on the shiny-shirted Basij militia; women shedding tears of distilled indignation; and that young woman who screamed, “We are all so angry. Will they kill us all?” . . . [read on]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***

Saturday, June 27, 2009

NAKED POWER

Over there

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/mousavi-vows-to-continue-efforts.html[Juan Cole] At his Friday prayers sermon on Friday, hard line cleric Ahmad Khatami (no relation to former president and liberal Mohammad Khatami) called for capital punishment for leaders of the popular demonstrations against the outcome of the election. This call is a new and dangerous turn . . .

Sarah Palin seems to be basing her political status on a perpetual series of aggrieved complaints and whining about how badly she is being treated. So appealing, and so appropriate in someone who aspires to national leadership

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/?hpid=opinionsbox1I started my column in January 2004, and one dominant theme quickly emerged: That George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes. In the days and weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, the nation, including the media, vested him with abilities he didn't have and credibility he didn't deserve. As it happens, it was on the day of my very first column that we also got the first insider look at the Bush White House, via Ron Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty. In it, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill described a disengaged president "like a blind man in a room full of deaf people", encircled by "a Praetorian guard,” intently looking for a way to overthrow Saddam Hussein long before 9/11. The ensuing five years and 1,088 columns really just fleshed out that portrait, describing a president who was oblivious, embubbled and untrustworthy.

When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney's lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby's lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles.

And while this wasn't as readily apparent until President Obama took office, it's now very clear that the Bush years were all about kicking the can down the road – either ignoring problems or, even worse, creating them and not solving them. This was true of a huge range of issues including the economy, energy, health care, global warming – and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.

How did the media cover it all? Not well. . . . [read on]

Bonus item: Ledes that make you want to read more (ok, maybe, maybe not)

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

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http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/06/25/basij/index.html[Mike Madden] Since Iranian authorities began their brutal repression of protest marches a week and a half ago, rumors have been flying that the Basij paramilitary force -- whose hardline members are fiercely loyal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- has been joined in the streets by foreign partners. Iranian exiles have told Salon frequently that friends and family in the country keep encountering non-Farsi speakers at demonstrations, wielding batons and helping to put down the protest movement. The foreigners, the rumors say, are members of Hezbollah or Hamas, the terrorist groups that Iran has backed over the years, coming to repay their patrons. . . .

I suppose it’s an obvious point, but while the salacious details of Mark Sanford’s affair provide much delight – the substantive issues, which should cost him his position, are his use of public funds to travel to see her, his irresponsible disappearance from his job, and his lies and misuse of his staff to cover up the affair

"The bookings also cast light on the governor's recklessness, and his belief, or hope, that he could vanish from the state for well over a week without raising questions about his absence."

A statement from Sanford also indicates he will reimburse the state for a trip he made last year that was paid for with public money.

"However, while the purpose of this trip was an entirely professional and appropriate business development trip, I made a mistake while I was there in meeting with the woman who I was unfaithful to my wife with. . .”

The State has put together a pretty thorough account of the back-story that led to two-timing two-termer's teary confession. . .

So Sanford had already announced the 2pm press conference. It's possible he planned to come clean even before The State showed him the emails -- according to a source, the paper contacted both Sanford's office, and Tom Davis, his former chief of staff, who the paper had worked with before -- and made clear they had the goods on him. . . .

-- Sanford did tell his staff and family where he was going.-- Because he was traveling without a security detail, it was in his best interests that no one knew he was gone.-- His political enemies -- Republicans at that -- ginned up the media story.-- When confronted by a pestering media, things went downhill.-- Again though, at all times there was no doubt that Sanford's staff and family knew where he was.

The left is linking to yesterday’s post to laugh at it. What they are missing is that most of us tend to give people the benefit of the doubt — even people like John Edwards.

We live in a fallen world and we ourselves are fallen. I am disappointed in Sanford, but not angry. The default for politicians seems to be unchaste. All we can do is work for ideas and try to find men of good character to fight for those ideas. . . .

What Mark Sanford did was wrong. He needs to go in a dark hole somewhere where no one can see him or hear him and rehabilitate himself. On the bright side, I doubt his indiscretions will affect the FisCon movement. The left is going to spend the next week making Sanford into the second coming of James Dobson to smear real marriage advocates and social conservatives — positions Sanford was rarely vocal on.

Blessed is the Lord God Jehovah who brings forth bread from heaven, water from rocks, and men like Mark Sanford from the dust of the earth. His will be done.

Among that younger generation, Sanford stood out as the most experienced, and has compiled a strong record not only of principle but of public integrity, from leaving Washington after three terms in Congress to battling his own party back home over spending....

The Left, of course, sensing the removal of an obstacle to ever-greater social control, is ecstatic at Sanford’s downfall.

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

THE LONG GOODBYE

Mark Sanford, soon-to-be former Republican governor of South Carolina, fesses up. He wasn’t in Atlanta, nor hiking the Appalachian Trail. I’m sure you’ve heard by now where he was, and why. Watch a major league meltdown in real time . . .

E-mails. E-MAILS??!!?? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#31533984“You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light . . .

In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.”

[NB: Obtained by a state newspaper in December, but kept quiet until now.]

Here’s what I want to know: how did the newspaper get the emails, and why did they sit on them for so long?

But with his governor now felled by similar temptations, Inglis sees an opening for the Republican Party, a chance to “lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness” and “to understand we are all in need of some grace.”

Of course, the main significance of the news, as the paper notes, is that it raises the likelihood that someone at Fox, or in touch with them, tipped Ensign to the news, prompting the Nevada senator to come clean. Fox senior producer Tom Lowell has previously denied telling Ensign about the letter, but Lowell declined to comment for this story.

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

WHAT NEXT?

What next in Iran?

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/guardianship-council-rules-out.html[Juan Cole] Iran's Guardianship Council, a sort of clerical senate on Tuesday ruled out any cancellation of the results of the recent presidential election, as called for by the opposition. The official outcome gave incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term. The vote tallies for Ahmadinejad have struck large numbers of Iranians as wholly unbelievable. So the Supreme Leader has spoken and the Guardianship Council has spoken. . . . [read on]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/opinion/24iht-edcohen.html[Roger Cohen] Iran’s 1979 revolution took a full year to gestate. The uprising of 2009 has now ended its first phase. But the volatility ushered in by the June 12 ballot-box putsch of Iran’s New Right is certain to endure over the coming year. The Islamic Republic has been weakened. . . . [read on]

http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/6/23/11222/0442[Charles Lemos] A news report from Al Arabiya and analysis from EurAsiaNet suggests that a power struggle may be occurring behind the scenes in Iran. The battle seems to be centered on control of the Assembly of Experts, or the Majlise Khobregan. The Assembly of Experts has 86 Islamic scholar members. Candidates are chosen from the ulema. All Assembly of Experts candidates are vetted by the 12-member and appointed Guardian Council. Candidates are elected by direct public vote. They are charged with electing and removing the Supreme Leader of Iran and supervising his activities. It meets for at least two days, twice annually.

The current chairman of this assembly is the former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, considered a pragmatic conservative and the strongest rival to the Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/pretty_standard_hiking.phpCNN reports that the state security Chevy Suburban that Gov. Mark Sanford drove off in last Thursday has turned up. At the airport. But not Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, where Sanford had reportedly been seen. They found it at Columbia Metropolitan Airport, the airport in the state capital. . . .

The pliant press seems to think that now that Sanford has been “found” the story is over. But of course the story is his habit of disappearing like this, the conflicting stories and lies, and the sheer irresponsibility of it all – in a man who thinks he can be President

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

BEHIND THE SCENES

We’re going to learn something about Obama in the upcoming health care fight. How prepared is he to put Democrats on the hot seat?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/leading-questions-by-digby-ed-kilgore.html[Digby] Indeed, if Obama still wants to emulate the great "game changer" himself, Ronnie Reagan, that is exactly what he would do. Reagan used his personal popularity to get rank and file Democrats to support his policies. And he rhetorically always framed his policies as the common sense policies of the everyman out in the country, and then they backed it up with polling that showed that the people trusted him.

Obama can pass health care with Democrats and then legitimately call it bipartisan by citing public support. But he has to not care that David Broder and David Brooks have a hissy fit over it. They do not speak for Americans; they don't even speak for Republicans on this one.

This is what the bully pulpit is all about. He can take his case directly to the people and if he backs a real plan, with real teeth, he can get it passed, I don't have any doubts. The party grassroots and the public at large, including a large number of Republicans, are with him. The only people standing in the way are the insiders in the ruling establishment who want to protect the status quo. . . . [read on]

The weirdest story of the day: Mark Sanford, SC governor and putative presidential aspirant, has a strange habit of disappearing from time to time, without disclosing his whereabouts or how to reach him. Really

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_06/018727.php[Andy McCarthy] "The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society. In this he is no different from his allies like the Congressional Black Caucus and Bill Ayers, who have shown themselves perfectly comfortable with Castro and Chavez . . .”

If it's an access question, people don't have access to health care, then figure out who they are, and give them access! Hello?! Am I missing something here? If my friend Trevor has access to health care, and I don't, why do I need to overhaul the entire system so I can get access he already has? why don't you just focus on me and get me access?

[Eric Kleefeld] This sounds kind of like Kenan Thompson's "Fix It!" routine from Saturday Night Live last fall, explaining the solution to the financial crisis. "Take it one step at a time: Identify the problem -- fix it! Identify another problem -- fix it! Repeat as necessary until it's all fixed!"

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

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"Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate -- the incident has happened in only 50 cities," Kadkhodaei said.

Kadkhodaei further explained that the voter turnout of above 100% in some cities is a normal phenomenon because there is no legal limitation for people to vote for the presidential elections in another city or province to which people often travel or commute. . . .

The spokesman, however, said that although the vote tally affected by such issues could be over 3 million and the council could, at the request of the candidates, re-count the affected ballot boxes, "it has yet to be determined whether the possible change in the tally is decisive in the election results" . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***

Sunday, June 21, 2009

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Crackdown starting in Iran

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/19/supreme_leader_speaks/Supreme Leader Khamanei starts speaking. He emphasizes that difference in opinion, difference in program between candidates is normal, natural. But beware, he says, for months the enemy had been laying the groundwork to label these elections a fraud. "The enemies of Iran are targeting the Islamic establishment's legitimacy by questioning the election. ... After street protests, some foreign powers started to interfere." . . .

When Khamanei speaks of the violence, it is clear that the regime is laying the groundwork for a crackdown. Chaos has to be stopped. . . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_06/018700.php[NYT] One day after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of bloodshed if street protests continued over the nation's disputed elections, witnesses, quoted by news services, said that thousands of demonstrators had attempted to gather for a scheduled opposition protest on Saturday, but that riot police, using tear gas and water cannons, had dispersed them.

Witnesses reported that the black-clad security forces lined the streets of two squares in central Tehran . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***